What is the CK2 Generator?

OVERVIEW

CK2 Generator is not affiliated with Paradox Interactive in any way, it is a third-party tool created by a fan of the game to add to the experience of Crusader Kings 2.

IMPORTANT: The tool is still in beta – you can expect bugs, potential crashes or weird generation issues that may impact your game. Please make sure you keep your autosaves frequent and report any issues so I can get them resolved.

Basically the tool will generate, from scratch, a completely new history of humanity from its first exodus from Africa as a new mod to be playable in CK2 (and now optionally an entirely random map!). A random culture and pagan religion is formed (as in completely random, using all the parameters available for religions and cultures in CK2, as well as forming a unique language used to name characters, provinces, kingdoms, gods, religions. These cultures will then spread throughout europe, mutating and changing as they spread, words and language, religions, ethnicity, cultural ideals, laws, looting, river sailing, incest, religious heads, holy sites, wives, concubines and everything, all morphing, mutating and branching off as humans spread through time and land, and form a completely unique world with absolutely none of the vanilla cultures, religions, provinces, de-jure duchies or anything found in the base game.

Then it starts generating the history in much greater detail, a simpler simulation than CK2, nevertheless it processes births, deaths, marriages, inheritances, wars and conquests to create full dynasty family trees, title histories, dejure kingdoms and empires, conquered lands, to create a starting point for the player to drop into and start creating their own histories in-game.

Absolutely everything about the history of the world except the map data itself is unique.

It also works on modded maps (though I can’t guarantee it’ll work on all modded maps, and it won’t use the mod’s mechanics and flavour, just the map itself)

In addition, the latest build adds completely random map generation, so you can play on a completely randomized map with completely randomized cultures, kingdoms, religions and empires!

HISTORY GENERATOR INSTRUCTIONS

Note it is not a mod so don’t extract to your mod directory, but an external tool you use to CREATE mods to play, so unzip to any location and run the tool.

Select the CK2 install directory in the Configuration tab.

Click ‘Load Map’ to load the vanilla map. (If you want to use a modded map or a generated map, select the mod or map directory with the ‘Alternate Map Mod’ directory first)

Set generation options in the Generation Option tab

Click Start in the Generate tab. It will start with pre-history where pre-society humans will spread throughout the land, and after all areas are colonized, it will begin generating the detailed history of your world. At this point you can stop the generation at any time, or leave it to run to an alternate 1066 (the maximum date, though it’ll report 1070 in the editor since it needs to generate a few years ahead).

Click export. It will export the history as a new mod in your CK2 mod folder.

If you want to play on an earlier date within the same history, you can input the same seed and re-generate, and stop generation at an earlier date (the seed is stored in the outputted mod’s root directory). At this time multiple start date bookmarks are not possible.

MAP GENERATOR INSTRUCTIONS

Load tool.

Click ‘Map Generator’ button.

Click ‘Generate Landmass’ until you find a landmass you want to use.

Click ‘Generate Full’

Select a directory to put the map into (this is a seperate process to creating the history generation mod itself, so the map can be reused for numerous generations, or used separately to generate maps for use in development of fantasy mods etc)

Wait 10-15 minutes (sorry, will try speed it up but its difficult, it’s doing a LOT) it may seem like it’s hung, may even say ‘Not Responding’ in the title bar, but it’s working away, don’t worry.

Once the map preview turns into a colour terrain map, we’re done.

Click ‘Yes’ when prompted to use the map you’ve generated.

Generate an alternate history as usual using the instructions above.

As I said before, expect there may be bugs or issues and keep your autosaves regular just in case.

KNOWN ISSUES

No nomads (disabled due to crashes / broken set up)

Will populate wastes in generation.

Potential for gameplay crashes so keep your autosaves regular.

Ports need rotating to face the right direction.

No straits created at this time between small islands / islands close to mainland

Occasionally some of the provinces may be a bit oddly shaped

No generation options for map. Just click ‘Generate Landmass’ until you find one you like.

This is not an exhaustive list I’m sure there are other issues I’ve forgotten or not discovered yet, certainly since the Reaper’s Due dropped so recently, so appreciate any feedback on issues, as well as fun screenshots of people’s random worlds, histories and characters.

SPECIAL THANKS:

Tinpinky: For helping massively with the province generation algorithms

Pirisinian: For hunting down the cause of a ridiculously frustrating bug!